Chapter 12
Our waiter returns then with our waters, and I realize I never even paid attention to what was on the menu. Skimming it quickly, I ask for a croque monsieur. That sounds good.
Tyler orders his second plate of steak frites of the night. I make an are-you-serious face at him.
He says, “A growing boy needs his beef.”
“And it’s basketball season,” I remind him.
“Actually, it just ended, but I appreciate the affirmation.”
When the waiter leaves, there’s a long silence. We each take a sip of water.
“I’m sorry for being a jerk about that book,” Tyler says finally, looking down at the table. “It does sound good.”
I take a breath, building up the courage to say something honest. Not as honest as Why are you pretending not to remember our childhood friendship? but close, I guess.
“You have this way of making me feel stupid for liking what I like,” I tell him.
Tyler shakes his head vehemently. “No—I’m sorry, Ben. I would never think you’re stupid—I actually think you’re brilliant. I guess … I’ve been ridiculed before, and I hate that feeling … but I’m doing that to you, which sucks.”
“Who would ridicule you?” I ask honestly, too surprised by that to be flustered by his “brilliant” comment.
Tyler puts on a strained smile—or maybe he’s gritting his teeth. “You know what my dad says? He says to me, ‘You’ll never catch a successful man reading a novel.’ ”
I cringe. What kind of parent would discourage reading? “What does he even mean by that?”
“He thinks anything that’s not bringing in money is a waste of time,” Tyler explains, looking out at the street. “Business, sports, and politics are all that a serious man spends his time on. Reading a book that’s not about one of those topics is too frivolous to waste your time on.”
“But you love reading,” I say. “You’ve read Marcel Proust, and his books are a million pages long!”
Tyler laughs. “Yeah, well … Harrison Travers wouldn’t be proud of a Proust scholar for a son.”
I have a flash-forward of Tyler in a university office lined with dark, oaky bookshelves loaded with dusty, leather-bound volumes.
His feet are flung onto his desk as he sits back in his chair, happily grading freshman term papers.
He has a nameplate on the desk that says PROFESSOR TRAVERS.
His blond, messy hair looks the same, but instead of a hoodie he’s wearing elbow patches on his blazer.
And of course, all the students have all-consuming crushes on him.
“Is that what you want to be when you grow up?” I ask. “A professor of Proust?”
Tyler rubs the back of his head, almost shyly. “Something like that … or maybe—ugh—don’t laugh.”
“I can’t make any promises,” I say.
He shakes his head. “Well, I wonder if I could be, like, a literary ‘influencer.’ Despite the fact that I hate social media. But you know, someone who can convince our generation that reading great novels is one of the best things you can do for yourself.”
I have to laugh. He still sounds pretentious, but it’s sort of sweet. Plus, I love the impracticality of it all. How would he possibly become an influencer if he eschews any and all social media?
“Like on BookTok?” I ask. For the millionth time that night, I wish I had my phone. I could pull up TikTok and show Tyler some of my favorite creators.
“Maybe?” Tyler says with a shrug. “Or whatever app we’ll all be on by then.”
“Okay. What’s so great about Proust?” I ask, clasping my hands together and fixing him with a challenging stare. “Convince me, a fellow member of your generation whose mind has been reduced to a ball of brain worms by modern pop culture and too much screen time, why I should read Proust.”
An excited glint flashes in Tyler’s eyes.
He sits up a little straighter, with the eagerness of a six-foot-four golden retriever.
“Well, first of all, Proust was a beautiful writer—he’s, like, a jazz pianist with words.
He writes these dense, incredibly long sentences that are just packed with meaning.
” He gestures as he talks, his long fingers trailing through the air.
“There’s one sentence in In Search of Lost Time that’s 958 words—”
I give a big, exaggerated yawn. “So he didn’t know how to edit himself? I’m not being influenced to read him yet.”
I’m lying. I’m fully being influenced.
Tyler leans closer to me. “Okay, I hear what you’re saying.
” He licks his lips and scrunches up his brow, thinking hard.
“Let me put it this way. You know how everyone is always asking the question, What’s the secret to happiness?
I think—and a lot of people who are much smarter than me also think this—that Proust came closest, out of anyone, to the answer. ”
Now I’m intrigued. “Okay. So what’s the answer? The tl;dr version.”
Tyler beams. “The tl;dr version? Ooh, that’s not what Proust was known for, but let me think …” He taps his chin.
“To pay attention,” Tyler says at last. “Pay attention to the tiny things that make you happy—not just out in the world, but in your own mind. Don’t be limited to your circumstances, whether it’s where you’re living, or what you were born into—because your mind is an amazing thing. It can take you anywhere.”
“Just like you said about the painting,” I say. And then I literally feel a click in my brain as a really important-seeming connection is made.
“Exactly!” Tyler looks thrilled by me as a student. “Proust believed that as long as you had your thoughts, you always had access to happiness. And you know why Proust was such an expert on happiness?”
“Why?”
“Because he suffered. He suffered like crazy. He wrote In Search of Lost Time, the greatest novel ever written, while he was in bed suffering from every illness known to humanity. He had awful asthma attacks that would last an hour each, and he sometimes had ten in one day.”
“Damn,” I say. “And here I am thinking it’s impossible to write a three-page English paper after I’ve had a big meal.”
“I know, right? Also, he was gay, and he’d never been in love with anyone who loved him back.”
Okay, me too and me too.
“And being gay was not okay in his day, not even in Paris,” Tyler goes on thoughtfully.
“So here’s this guy, stuck in bed in a tiny little room, constantly alone, could barely go for an hour without struggling to breathe …
and yet he had this uncontrollable, ridiculously huge imagination and inner life that he poured into this million-word-long novel that changed how people think forever.
I always call it In Search of Lost Time instead of Remembrance of Things Past, which is the more popular translation of the title, because it’s so much more profound, and I think more what he was trying to say.
There were so many things Proust missed out on in life, so he had to write it all into existence. ”
I’m feeling tingles all over my skin. My senses are alive; the night air is crisp.
The strangers who pass by on the street are all fascinating to me, holding all sorts of wonderful secrets.
I wonder if those brilliant artists who sat right where we’re sitting—Hemingway, the Fitzgeralds, Simone de Beauvoir, Picasso, James Baldwin—felt exactly what I’m feeling right now.
“Oh, and the madeleines,” says Tyler. “Have you heard of Proust’s madeleines?”
“Like the little orphan girl in the books?”
“No, that’s Madeline.” Tyler beams—he loves an opportunity to school someone, and in this moment, I’m happy to be a student.
“A madeleine is a kind of French cookie. There’s a part in Proust’s book where the narrator—who is really just Proust—is sick and miserable, but his mom brings him some madeleine cookies and lime-blossom tea.
He dips the cookies in the tea, and something about the combo of flavors, the smell of them, unlocks all these hidden, happy memories from his childhood that he’d totally forgotten.
It’s like, even in a simple cookie, you can have a life-changing experience. ”
The server arrives with our food then, and suddenly, I have an idea. “Excusez-moi,” I say to the waiter as he places my melty, gooey croque monsieur in front of me. “Je voudrais deux madeleines, s’il vous pla?t. Et … un, um, pot of lime-blossom tea.”
The server arches an eyebrow and gives me a snooty little nod as he sets the plate of steak and French fries down in front of Tyler. “Ah, the Proustian special. How original,” he says in English, clearly not impressed with my French. “Would you like to wait for dessert, or …”
“As soon as possible, s’il vous pla?t,” I say.
“Certainly,” he says, breezing away.
Tyler gives me an amused look. “What was that about?”
I’m busy cutting off a huge chunk of my croque monsieur and stuffing it into my mouth.
The cheese scalds the inside of my mouth, but I don’t care—its creamy, stretchy chewiness combined with the strong saltiness of the ham and the buttery flakiness of the croissant hits taste buds I didn’t know I had.
“Omg,” I mumble through my mouthful of delicious cheese. “What is this sorcery?”
Tyler laughs. “Your eyes are rolling into the back of your head,” he says.
I swallow my bite and take a sip of water, wishing it had ice in it. “French food has not been underrated so far,” I say.
“Agreed,” Tyler says, popping a French fry into his mouth.
“Anyway, I asked the waiter for the Proust combo because I want to see if a madeleine and tea can bring back some magical repressed memories for us,” I explain.
What I really mean is that I want to see if madeleines can make Tyler remember our childhood. I realize my idea is far-fetched and pretty silly, but it’s worth a try.
Tyler gives me a that’s-a-cute-thought grin as he takes a big bite of steak. “There’s nothing magical about a madeleine,” he argues. “It just happened to trigger a specific memory for Marcel Proust. All of us have different food triggers associated with deep childhood memories.”